91360: "A household consumable item automatic
replenishment system automatically maintains a desired
inventory of household consumable items. The household
consumable item automatic replenishment system has a
refrigerator compartment having an indoor access and
an outdoor access and an unrefrigerated compartment
having an indoor access and an outdoor access. An
automatic inventory system has a plurality of sensors
configured to provide information representative of an
inventory of the refrigerated compartment and the
unrefrigerated compartment. An inventory processor is
coupled to the sensors to process the information
representative of the inventory of the refrigerated
compartment and the unrefrigerated compartment, so as
to make a list of items which are to be replenished.
An automatic ordering system comprises a
telecommunications device coupled to cooperate with
the inventory processor to communicate at least a
portion of the list to at least one vendor.
http://www.freepatentsonline.com/6204763.html
Suppose your refrigerator knew better than you what
was inside of it. "So what?" you might ask.
Well, think about it for a minute. You're at
supermarket and realize you do not know whether you
need eggs, so you buy a dozen just in case. When you
get home, you find that you already have more than a
dozen. Now you have too many. It is no big deal, you
think. It is Saturday, and you can make omelets
tomorrow for breakfast. But, if there had been an easy
way for you to know that you did not have to buy the
eggs, you most probably would have made use of it.
"The intelligent refrigerator—one that can
tell you what is inside, how much of it, when you last
bought it, and perhaps even when it is time to throw
it out—has been a technovision since the advent
of the "third wave." But until RFID
appeared, smart refrigerators remained in the world of
the Jetsons. In the near future, RFID tags built in to
packaging materials will be able to communicate with
RFID receivers built in to refrigerators. As you will
read in the manufacturing and retail chapters,
although RFID tags are today being used on more macro
containers (pallets, cartons, crates), the direction
is for them to go down into individual
packages."
http://safari.ibmpressbooks.com/0131852159/ch05lev1sec4